A Mea Culpa

I published this (Note: link fixed) well linked to post concerning the supposed failure of the Blogosphere with regard to the reporting of events in New Orleans. I wrote the following:

Blogs can't compete with this onslaught. While the blogosphere is a major part of the information wagon train, they are much better with slower moving issues such as the Dan Rather affair or the Trent Lott kerfuffle.

I'm not saying that blogs have not provided a service during this disaster because they have proved to be a tremendous resource with raising donations and such. What I am saying is that during any type of disaster--especially in August when the Cindy Sheehan peace train lost its interest--the news networks have no peer when it comes to setting the agenda.

I was wrong. I bought into the media hype about rapes and murders when I should have known better. The media was dead wrong with regard to all of these stories. Just how wrong was revealed today:

After five days managing near-riots, medical horrors and unspeakable living conditions inside the Superdome, Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron prepared to hand over the dead to representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Following days of internationally reported killings, rapes and gang violence inside the Dome, the doctor from FEMA - Beron doesn't remember his name - came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies.

"I've got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome," Beron recalls the doctor saying.

The real total was six, Beron said.Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the turning over of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice. State health department officials in charge of body recovery put the official death count at the Dome at 10, but Beron said the other four bodies were found in the street near the Dome, not inside it. Both sources said no one had been killed inside.

Eating crow in general sucks. Eating crow when that crow has stewed in the juices of an Instalanche sucks about 1000 times worse, especially when I get taken down by someone I respect.